The Couch
by NDV
Summary: Sort of just a McMurphy vignette-piece, one of her consultations with the psychiatrist... Her view of her experiences during the Vietnam War era.


The Couch  
NDV (lizaausten@tri-countynet.net)   
  
This is yet another short little fluff piece centered around McMurphy. Basically, this is a conversation in 1990 between she and her shrink (whose name I can not, for the life of me, remember. So I made one up. When I go back and watch the episodes with the older woman in it, I'll check. I can see her face, but the name eludes me). The name is a 'production short' but it works. Think of something better, and I'll throw you a cookie. Chocolate chip, even :-) Reviews would/will be muchly appreciated.  
  
As you know, the standard disclaimer applies. I own nothing, nada, zip, in the character/show department. The only thing I own is this little story-vignette-thing itself.   
  
The Couch  
  
"Open up, Colleen. You can't keep these things buried in your mind, forever."  
  
"What is this, your mantra?" the younger woman retorted, throwing back at her psychiatrist. She was seated in an overly plush chair, her eyes wide and attentive. Colleen, sitting opposite her, sat on the cliched shrink's couch, her back rigid and her posture hard-lined.   
  
In response, the doctor said nothing, just jerked her head in the form of a quick nod. "It can't hurt you, Colleen, only help."  
  
She rolled her eyes, the indignance of youth rising in her again. "I still don't see the point in this." She waited momentarily for a response she didn't receive, then continued. "Fine, fine, fine. I, all right, I'll talk. I'm the good little Catholic girl, right? Well, guilt's a prerequisite, obviously, but I'm beginning to get a complex here. These dreams are like movie sequences, you know? All black and white and very connected."  
  
"Vietnam?" Doctor Alders prodded, looking for an in to her mind.  
  
"Is there anything else?" McMurphy huffed, then continued, "Yeah. Vietnam." Again, she paused. "I don't remember a single name, you know, but there's not a face I've forgotten. You never forget that, the looks on their faces when they're hurting, or that one look that they all wore, as they died. I keep seeing them, the looks, the faces, hearing their prayers, the rosary. "Will I be all right?" The promises, the lies, "Yes, you'll be fine." They're things you never think you'll forget, and you never do. The saddest part of all is that the things you wish you could remember are the ones left behind. I don't remember Richard's laughter, or the color of KC's hair anymore. It's just kind of like tinkling, and a blur of red. I remember tapping the end of an IV, and wiping blood from my own hands, but I don't quite... recall the words to any of the songs we sang at those stupid parties or the beauty pageants. I can't forget hearing that Natch had been killed, but I can't hold onto all of the details, the words, the good things. I remember Saigon and bonfires on the beach, and that's all I remember. How fair is that? The only good things I dream about are mixed in with all of the bad ones, and they're about the land and the place, when it's the people I loved the most, I miss the most," she let out a dry chuckle, "You'd hardly know it but I wasn't always a mess, I wasn't always tired and old and sad."  
  
Alders nodded again, smiling now. "I've heard you mention Natch, and even Richard in previous sessions. Were there others?"  
  
"Oh, well, not really. And Richard was just a ... that was an unrequited crush. Natch was married and I didn't know, and I was young and foolish anyway. After that there was Doctor Benard and Vinnie, and then I suppose Richard came in somewhere. After Vietnam, things changed, not so much on the 'love'," her words were mocking, "front. Things were different. I didn't fit here, none of us did. And when troops were sent back, the ones that tried to stay behind, tried to make a life in 'Nam, they didn't fit either. Didn't fit anywhere. Still don't. How d'you fix something like that, huh? 'Cause I've got to tell you, no amount of psychotherapy is going to fix that, Doctor. Only thing that can is time."  
  
"Memories and time tie in together," the doctor nodded, "but with time, your memories will fade even more."  
  
Smiling almost bitterly, Colleen McMurphy nodded, "That's the point. If I can't remember the good times, and the bad ones only haunt, why not forget it all?" Her eyes were tired, old. A whisp of gray hair was positioned neatly in her bangs, a sign of wisdom and not age, she had decided it would be perceived as.   
  
Laughing to herself, she finished, "Even then it won't be right. We'll never fit, the ones from Vietnam."  
  
"You deserve the thanks, anyway. All of you do," the other woman smiled comfortingly. "You deserve the thanks for fighting, in the field or out."  
  
Her eyes were heavy-lidded, and tears were welling in the corners. Looking out the cozy office's window at the green on the trees planted just outside, McMurphy finished, nodding. For a little while, just a little while, you were real and right, and we knew what we were fighting for. We all belonged there, even if we didn't want to be there. We fit," she paused a second, and a tear lit a path down her cheek as she held her hands together in her lap, "Thanks for the memories, 'Nam. Thanks for the memories."  
  
And for just a moment, staring at the spruce leaves as they waved in the breeze, she remembered a party twenty-one years before; KC's hair was strawberry blond, a beautiful red, and Richard's echoing laughter made her smile. 


End file.
